1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the technology preferably applied to a system for observing a microscope image in the medical and biological fields, and more specifically to the technology applied to a telepathological system. The present invention can also be applied to, in addition to the telepathological system, an educational system using a microscope image observed by a computer for executing image browsing software by accumulating an image obtained by moving the microscope image in the optical axis direction, and distributing a virtual focus image through a communications network such as the Internet, etc.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, in the medical field, the pathological diagnostics using a microscope is an indispensable diagnostic item. In this connection, a system for remote diagnostics by a pathologist resident at a university using a microscope image transmitted from a remote hospital to the university has been suggested.
Pathological diagnostics normally refers to a check of internal organs and organizations. The check targets are, for example, a stomach, a large intestine, a lymph node, etc. taken by a surgical method. Furthermore, a piece of organization taken in an endoscopic examination or using a thin pipe is also a check target which is referred to as a biological test specimen. Furthermore, liquid materials such as ascites, urine, phlegm, blood, etc. are also check targets. These liquid materials are targets of cell diagnostics because a check is made by collecting cells existing in the liquids.
In the cell diagnostics in the pathological diagnostics, since cells are applied to a slide for observation, the sample is thick. Therefore, the position of the focal point is not limited to only one. In this case, the microscope is used by shifting the focal point when a sample is observed. Relating to the above-mentioned technology, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 6-250097 discloses the microscope remote observation system in which a plurality of microscope images, which have the same coordinates and the same magnification as the macro image fetched by a video camera provided for the microscope at a specified position, obtained by changing the position of the focal point in the optical axis direction on the microscope are fetched into the computer, processed as a group of images obtained by shifting the focal point of a target, and regenerating the images. In this system, static images are transmitted to reduce the communications cost. Practically, it is easy to design a variation of the system such that moving pictures can be processed by using a communications line of a large capacity such as optical fiber, etc. and transferring the moving pictures obtained by moving an image in the optical axis direction of the microscope.
However, in the above-mentioned system, the moving pitch of a focal point (the amount of sequential moving in the optical axis direction of the microscope) for fetch of a microscope image in a plurality of positions of the focal points are not clearly defined and are optional. Therefore, wasteful images can be obtained depending on the moving pitch, or the image in a desired observation position cannot be obtained due to too long a moving pitch.